So - yes - I do have and use some aural tuning skills - specifically nough to do the unisons. Duaine The first step in learning to tune by ear is by tuning unisons. Once you understand what you have to listen to, (eliminating the beats), you work on octaves. It's really not that difficult, Duaine, if you just take the time to learn. BTW, not to open up a past subject, but I asked you who had listened to your Cybertuning tuning, to make sure it's good. You mentioned your mentor. That's fine. But is he with you on every tuning? Just because he listened to you once, doesn't mean each and every tuning is right on. You also mentioned that you don't want to, or need to, go to conventions or seminars because there is nothing there for you to learn. (That they concentrate too much on grand tuning and repair, and not enough on uprights and/or player repair). I've attended about 60 seminars and/or conventions in the 34 years I've been in the PTG. Not once have I gone to one where I didn't learn something. Now maybe it's because my service area is a little more expanded than yours, but even if you want to limit yourself to upright and/or payer repair, there are always enough classes on that subject, plus business classes, tuning classes, health related classes, etc. to make it worth your while to attend a seminar. And what's wrong with learning a little more about grand pianos? After all, you tuned a Steinway B. Perhaps if you had taken a course on voicing, and/or advanced grand regulating, you could have offered that customer additional services. Wim -----Original Message----- From: Duaine Hechler <dahechler at att.net> To: pianotech <pianotech at ptg.org> Sent: Mon, Jan 31, 2011 3:55 pm Subject: Re: [pianotech] [Pianotek] the big discussion AMEN, I couldn't have stated it better myself. Plus, as I was training - with the Cybertuner - my mentor kept telling e the most important thing about tuning is - stability (setting the in, to the point it don't move after you put it somewhere) and tuning - urally - the unisons - meaning, being able to tell when all two or hree strings sound like one. So - yes - I do have and use some aural tuning skills - specifically nough to do the unisons. Duaine On 01/31/2011 02:44 PM, David Love wrote: I think I would put stability a shade above “musical quality” however that’s defined. If it doesn’t stay put it doesn’t much matter what you deliver. But that’s really a separate issue. The real issue to me boils down to this. I don’t think that it’s a comparison between the tuning of a **highly skilled** aural tuner and an end user (let’s put all the other etd benefits aside for the moment). And It’s not necessarily about the highly skilled aural tuner who has decided to employ the use of an etd for various reasons. The issue, as I’ve mentioned, is for the person who is deciding how to approach this task with respect to their customers. So, if you define “highly skilled”, by the Virgil Smith standard (and of course there are others who meet this standard as well), most aural tuners, especially newer ones, are not highly skilled. Many, in fact—even RPTs, may never be. That isn’t to say they didn’t pass the RPT test but the skill level varies, if we’re being honest. I would guess the average pass rate of the RPT exam is about 85% (don’t know for sure) and there are many associate members who wouldn’t yet pass or haven’t passed at 80%. Some of these are plying their trade as aural tuners, or being encouraged to because of what is (erroneously) believed to be a lack of “musical quality” of an etd tuning. But for arguments sake let’s say that aural tuners perform on average around 85% in terms of accuracy as measured by the RPT test. And let’s further assume that this has to do with temperament/octave setting and that both etd and aural tuners in this comparison tune stable and solid unisons. Using an etd that same aural tuner can hit the target spot on as dictated by the etd, if they were using one. So I’m a customer and my “tuner” comes to me and says, “I can tune your piano aurally and I’m an RPT but I usually hit the RPT standard at about 85% pass rate. If I tune it with this etd I can hit the standard at very near 100% though the tuning will be a computer generated tuning based on its reading of your piano and not a custom tuning curve as I see fit. Now I prefer to tune aurally because it gives me more personal satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment but you’re the customer. What would you like me to do?” Well, I can tell you what I would say as the customer. So the question is, what obligation do we have to our customers to deliver the highest quality tuning we are capable of? We are, after all, charging them good money to do a professional job. Is our first obligation to ourselves to work in the way that gives us the most personal satisfaction? Or is it to work in the way that delivers consistently from the first tuning of the day to the last one the highest quality product day in and day out, from the most god awful spinet to the highest quality grand. If the primary obligation is to ourselves then I say have at it however you want. However, if our first obligation is to our customers then I think it best to realistically and honestly assess what it is you can and do deliver and make the appropriate choice with your customers in mind. If that means an etd and you wish to continue to hone your aural skills to raise them to a level that is on par I would be the first to encourage that. But insisting on tuning aurally when you know you can deliver on average a superior product in a different way is arguably selfish and irresponsible. BTW temperament tuning was not the basis of my platform. However if you value an accurate and equal temperament, you won’t aurally beat a machine’s ability to divide an octave into 12 equal parts, in fact, rarely will you equal it. David Love www.davidlovepianos.com -- uaine Hechler iano, Player Piano, Pump Organ uning, Servicing & Rebuilding eed Organ Society Member lorissant, MO 63034 314) 838-5587 ahechler at att.net ww.hechlerpianoandorgan.com - ome & Business user of Linux - 11 years -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20110131/0370eee2/attachment.htm>
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